


Young Renegades

by x_x



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: AU, F/F, F/M, Multi, age changes vary but the main three are all around the same proportionate maturity, vanguard!Shep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 14:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17367572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_x/pseuds/x_x
Summary: Kolyat is a fully-honed assassin who left home as a kid shortly after his father disappeared. Shepard is a personified wrecking ball in a galaxy where humans are (believed to be) extinct. Morinth is a rogue ardat-yakshi on the run as her mother hunts her down with intent to kill. The three combined seem like a recipe for disaster-- but when disaster is all you've ever known, it feels a lot like home.





	Young Renegades

 

 

This one was persistent.

 

The shotgun indicated they specialized in melee. And from how Kolyat had drained an entire clip dry trying to collapse their shields, they had the defense to justify it; and they hadn't given him the chance to reload his pistol since. He had to keep them at bay.

 

A burst of searing heat grazed Kolyat's shoulder, the passing burn caused a brief fizzle in his shields as he threw himself and his captive sidelong to dodge. The full brunt of the round left a blackened, melted dent in the rotten architecture of the building beside them. Kolyat butted his empty pistol under the turian's fringe as he forced him along to a sprint. Joram Talid, for all his earlier whimpering and sputtering, had at least become immediately compliant now that his death was no longer the most immediate priority.

 

Intel on security hadn't included anything outside the two krogan bodyguards that had been shadowing Talid (that is, before Kolyat got through with them) but before he could get to eliminating his actual target, he was accosted by the shotgun-toting intruder, and both of them had been put on the run by the arrival of Citadel authorities.

 

Said pursuer vanished beyond view again, forced into cover from federal fire. Kolyat dredged his next course of action through the frustration that'd begun pulsing between his eyes. _So much for keeping this quiet._

 

C-Sec vehicles glided overhead with searchlights, slicing his path into thin, ever-shifting slivers of accessible shadow way. He would have had no problem avoiding detection and making an escape alone, but not with his hands full of the sluggish, shaking heap that was his intended hit. If he could just….

 

The thought hadn't even settled before Kolyat found himself bounding forward to evade another shotgun blast pitched behind him-- _that…_ \-- right into the shining breadth of a searchlight-- …. _that asshole!_. His vision was lit white from the intensity of the concentrated brightness, and Kolyat cursed under his breath, squinting through it as he pressed blindly forward with Talid as his shield.

 

It took mere seconds to cross the patch of visibility before they were hidden in the narrow alley's shadows again, but seconds was all it took. The way the searchlight froze upon their passing and then began whisking frantically about the alleyway was enough to know that they'd been spotted. Ground units were likely being dispatched to their location. He had to leave. But he had to kill Talid. But trying to beat or strangle a turian to death was a losing notion. It was a bad time to be between clips; if he could just reload--

 

Another shotgun round tore the air and Kolyat yanked his momentum backwards as the ground in front of him flared up with dust and debris, tiles blown to pieces. He doubled back, taking the opposite way. The building on the other end of the passageway looked like an apartment complex going through refurbishing-- even better. A cluster of C-Sec cars passed them, lowering altitude to park. Kolyat had caught a glimpse of their pursuer upon a nearby fire escape as he swung over the railing of the complex's stairwell, dragging Talid with him and moving low. Talid was losing stamina, becoming more and more of a literal weight impeding Kolyat's speed, looking less and less afraid now that the authorities had surrounded the perimeter, but luckily not yet bold enough to fight back; he had no idea Kolyat's gun was empty, after all.

 

Kolyat might have been more irritated about the bothersome third party shooting at him if their aim wasn't horrendous (what were they expecting, trying to shoot that distance with a shotgun?), and if their brazenness weren't drawing so much federal attention and fire away from Kolyat's path. Their shields flickered wit the threat of cutting out each time they fell under fire from the ring of police slowly closing in on them?

 

The last sight he got of his pursuer, a squad of officers had dropped onto the balcony they'd just leapt on, and they'd met the entire force head-on with a biotic flare and their shotgun aimed straight. He heard them open unabashed fire as the cops shouted in alarm.

 

Then, he and Talid were shrouded in the darkness of the musty complex. There were partially demolished walls on this story, allowing him some insight as to how the upper levels may be laid out; he paused only briefly to give his eyes time to adjust to the dimmer lighting, before shoving Talid to an even pace up the nearest flight of stairs. He needed to find an enclosed room, reload, kill his target, and get the hells out of the city-- and then find out who exactly was tailing him.

 

If they weren't working with C-Sec, what the hell were they doing here? Further, what kind of idiot took out feds in plain sight? What kind of idiot engaged via _full body tackle_?

 

Krogan, _maybe_. But this one wasn't the right size, or shape besides. Biped frame with upright posture, but smaller stature than a turian. That still left too broad a pool-- asari, salarian, quarian, drell….

 

Kolyat whirled sideways, delivering a swift kick to the door at the dark end of the corridor. He towed Talid through, kicking the door back shut behind them, and lugged the turian away from the windows (two, unfortunately canvassed wide).

 

"P-please," Talid gasped, looking alarmed at once. He grunted as Kolyat kicked his legs from under him. "I can pay--"

 

"Shut up." It took a fraction of a second for the latter to reload. _At long last._

 

Talid's mandibles slackened, eyes quivering at the realization that he could have easily escaped through brute strength. Kolyat scowled as he placed the loaded gun to his target's temple. Whether C-Sec or the unknown on his tail dropped in, he needed a hostage for some favor over them. If fortune was on his side, it would be the cops; he knew he could overwhelm a squad on his own easily, kill Talid, and then take an officer hostage. A badge uniform in tow would do worlds better for leeway out of here than an extremist turian recently famed for spouting paranoid theory after theory about a human uprising.

 

Not that Kolyat sided too strongly with any party, but vengeful humans secretly conspiring to overthrow galactic order? It was ludicrous.

 

The human homeworld had been burned black and bled out-- a tale of modern genocide that resonated throughout the galaxy as a stain on societal history, topping even the genophage. Nonetheless, Talid was building a steady following, and causing enough panic in the masses that it was no small wonder how he got on someone's shitlist. Turians had already fallen under enough flack by their involvement in containing the krogans-- wiping humans out solidified their stereotype as being brutally ethnocentric. And the overall aftermath saw increased political suspicions between all species, so that diplomatic tensions were taut to the point of one wrong look setting off a galactic war.

 

That said, business in espionage was thriving.

 

Kolyat's recall kicked in as his mind drifted back to his pursuer. _A grotesque mimic of a Collector's bare anatomy, scaled and skewed to fit smaller, slighter proportions._ Modeled after a Collector's muscled structure to enhance physical capability. _A hulking shotgun-- a Claymore!-- but no other weapons holstered, likely to keep movement speed up._ But it made them near to entirely reliant in hand-to-hand. Foolish. Kolyat could stand a chance in a one-off if he kept his distance. _All the restraint of a bomb in detonation, an eruption of hyperfocused vibrance in each movement--_ Alright, that was enough.

 

Quarians wouldn't dare risking unnecessary wear and tear to their suits-- point blank with a shotgun was as near as they got in combat. And no matter how many synthetic enhancements were implemented into an armor suit, a salarian's physiology couldn't withstand the high impact demanded for melee confrontation. Drell assassins had some reputation for their excellent eye-sight, which suited them to sniping and granted them high regard for efficient close-quarter encounters where they easily spotted an opponent's weaknesses; his pursuer's choice of actions were boorish and entirely counterintuitive to drell advantage, not to even mention how none of the shots they'd taken had been anywhere close to maiming him.

 

…Unless they weren't aiming for him.

 

Were they _steering_ him?

 

Before his stomach had a chance to churn at the thought, the window erupted in a flare of shard and splintered sound as a form barraged through. Just one. Wearing Collector armor. _Damn it._ Kolyat immediately caught their attention by tilting his pistol so that it glinted in the dim light. They regarded him with a head tilt, and stood.

 

It was surprising how short they were at full height, considering how they'd fought like they had the size capacity of a freight carrier. It was still somewhat difficult to tell where their body began and where the armor's synthetic musculature ended. But at this proximity it was easy to tell that the middle digits of their hand weren't merged, and the paired mounds upon their chest was the next disclosure-- Kolyat crossed drell off the list.

 

So, an asari.

 

That would explain the biotic-charged dash, and potentially their outright defiance of local authority as the word 'justicar' floated into Kolyat's consciousness. He'd heard of the ilk before, the legendary asari super soldiers committed to upholding their rendition of justice, with no qualms against slaughtering anyone who stood in their way. Pretentious lot, in Kolyat's opinion, but certainly not an adversary he would haphazardly take on even on a good day.

 

"Stand the fuck down," Kolyat grit out, nudging the gun's muzzle against Talid's skull. "I'll kill him."

 

"No, you won't." The responding voice came out breezy, playful.

 

Before he could even fathom what that meant, the asari's shotgun discharged. Talid tumbled over into a bloody mess of himself that declared tens of thousands of lost credits for the hijacked assassination. Kolyat's hands were red and wet from the blood spray when he reared his pistol up and aimed at the intruder. She jerked her shotgun's path of fire towards him in the same tick.

 

"That was _my_ mark, bitch."

 

"Save it, 'bitch'," the asari said. "I'm doing you a favor."

 

"Right." Kolyat scoffed. "By stealing my contract?"

 

"Not sorry to break it to you, but you've been made. There was a hit put on whoever offed Talid, to tie up loose ends and all that."

 

That was certainly news. Eliaske'Lham had been Kolyat's only contact. He'd thought it odd that the quarian didn't seem to want to give him the contract in the first place, considering his success rate, but now he knew why. Gods damn it. As far as negotiations went for pay and anything not directly relevant to the hit, there a general consensus of goings-on for his line of work: the less everyone knew, the better. Political hits were especially restrictive on intel. He just assumed Elias's silence on the matter had been business as usual.

 

"C-Sec's been bought to cooperate with taking you down too," the asari continued, still all too flippant for Kolyat's taste. "It's not a stretch for the feds to resort to lethal force when apprehending a perp."

 

Nothing was against the law, for the right price. Kolyat had long been regretting taking this job, but he'd also been running low on funds, and even knowing all this, he would've likely took the job anyway.

 

"Then I assume you're after my head as well," Kolyat said icily.

 

A chuckle. "Wrong, asshole. I'm the one bailing you out."

 

He never thought it would piss him off to have a gun _not_ pointed at him, but then there his would-be assailant was, lowering her shotgun to reload it. Whether she was smug about him not exploiting the vulnerability, or smug in her capability to neutralize him from that distance, either was cause for the throbbing pulse in his ears. Kolyat glimpsed down at Jorim Talid's corpse for some sense of finality, and when he saw that the latter was indeed dead, he fought back a groan before accepting his predicament. Without a hostage, it was in his best interest to join forces with the maniac donning Collector armor if he wanted to escape.

 

Kolyat lowered his gun. "Who _are_ you again?"

 

He'd not even finished speaking when something was flung through the broken window, but he immediately recognized it as an arc grenade.

 

"Walk and talk!" the asari shouted after following his gaze.

 

The next moment brought pain. Breath was ripped from his lungs as his back hit a window pane, breaching the full way through. His shields had been demolished on contact when the asari tackled him-- _biotic_ -charge tackled him-- and there was nothing to cushion the full brunt of being knocked through a godsdamned window. He was still sputtering for a decent inhale as they tumbled through open air.

 

A heavy, prolonged moment of dread passed through Kolyat as he visited the concept of hitting ground before his shields could regen. But then, the asari was swinging them, flipping them around so she was underneath him. The dread was replaced by a second of astonishment. Then, abruptly the screeching of her electronic shields giving with a shatter around them, the jolt of their fall's end as the ground slammed up to meet them. What impact left unabsorbed shocked Kolyat's lungs back into functionality.

 

He gasped and coughed, mind still lagging in the advent of new information and circumstance yet to be sorted through. And prevailing above all, the knowledge that it wasn't yet safe.

 

Kolyat began picking himself up, pulling at his extremities warily for any signs of appreciable pain. Only nigh of sitting upright did he register the unmoving armored commando still below his. The armor was still intact, shields reconfiguring with a brief blue flicker down the whole of the suit. But the body inside….

 

"Hey," Kolyat murmured, sobered by the brief passing of an overhead C-Sec vehicle. It cast a searchlight, missing them only by pure luck of angle. He shook the commando slightly, unabashedly considering abandonment of her. If his situation was as dire as she'd claimed, he needed to be gone. Still, she'd taken the brunt of the fall…so he shook her again. " _Hey_."

 

No response. Kolyat cursed, drawing back--

 

"BOO!"

 

\--and visibly lurched in start as he was grabbed suddenly.

 

A stifled guffawof the asari filled in the air between them as she stirred and squirmed underneath, overtaken by amusement. The hands around Kolyat's elbows dropped back down as the commando continued to laugh.

 

Kolyat promptly rolled off in disgust.

 

"'M good," the asari said, mirth palpable in her voice. "Built like a tank!"

 

"How does 'walk and talk' equate to 'jump through a window pane' for you?" he rasped angrily, still thin on oxygen as he forced himself to his feet.

 

"Must have been lost in translation," the asari replied, though the snicker therein leaned too far towards jest for Kolyat's liking. She groaned slightly as she heaved herself off the ground as well. "These things aren't exactly up to date in my speak. C'mon."

 

Kolyat tensed up, more in agitation than true pain, as her armored hand patted him on the back-- _whacked_ him, more like, with the amount of force behind the otherwise detectably lighthearted gesture-- to spur him into movement. For lack of else to do, he didn't argue. But he still needed more information, sprinting through the slums of C-Sec and letting this commando call the shots.

 

"What's your endgame in this?"

 

"Endgame is keeping you alive." Again, a breezy, simple response. "Sound good?"

 

"Hardly," Kolyat spat, not bothering to hide his disdain. "You steal my mark, claim I'm in danger, expect me to immediately trust you with my life after plummeting the both of--"

 

"Let's just say I got ahold of your dossier-- Kolyat Krios. Drell. Only a name spoken in the dark outerworlds. That's how you know an assassin's the real deal, right? When not many people are alive to know a name."

 

"...I'm assuming you tracked me down because you have a job for me. And for your handler's sake, it better compensate for the hundred and fifty thou you just burned off my account."

 

"Great! So you accept."

 

It was difficult to decide what was getting to be more abrasive: her blithe manner, or the edge lining her undertone as implication that he didn't have a choice at all in the matter. Either gave Kolyat the urge to distribute a plenty of stab wounds in the threat to his autonomy standing before him. He had height and length over her; it would be a challenge, but he could gain an advantage if he finessed enough distance between them and fired from afar.

 

At the same time…the prospect of pay had its appeal, especially in the wake of this botched assignment. And it wasn't beyond him to grasp to realize that she was likely his best shot out of the trap he'd strutted into.

 

"Tentatively," he gave.

 

So displeased at the evening's outcome, he barely had any reaction left when a C-Sec squad debouched around the corner, and immediately opened fire upon sight of them.

 

" _Perps_! Requesting back-up to cut them off-- coords now-- all units--"

 

Kolyat was falling back away from burst of energy rounds to prepare return fire with his pistol, but the commando reared forward.

 

Biotics flared around her frame. "Red rover, red rover!"

 

 _…Mistranslation?_ Again, Kolyat had to consider the possibility of the translators not being up to date in the asari's specific dialect. Before he could ask, she'd darted forward in a flash of biotic afterimage.

 

Telekinetic flares exploded around her as she collided with her quarry. The group of officers were flung into air, flailing. Kolyat collected headshots from the ones too far for the commando to reckon with on her direct-impact warpath.

 

_She fights like a krogan!_

 

Her follow-up to the meteoric body slam was yet another biotic-charged explosion, this time with the energy balled up and unleashed from the heave of her palm. Any survivors, most stunned while others numb from the raw show of animosity, were picked off with a point-blank discharge of her shotgun. More units rushed the site, spilling in from adjacent alleyways, and were met with the same fate. But even more units appeared in their place.

 

Under heavy fire, Kolyat knew the commando's shields weren't getting nearly enough time to regen between waves. The commando's armor began taking chips and burns; Kolyat found himself ducking behind cover more often than effect any offensive maneuvers. They were being forced back.

 

He was tucked behind a pillar when a set of rounds cracked through the bitumen just beyond his ear. His head rang and shook; hissing angrily from his throat, he skimmed the area for better cover, even if only for a moment. They were in vicinity of a construction zone: a partially demolished building. Even closer, a dumping crate for disposed-of materials. It would serve.

 

The commando cursed loudly then-- she was stumbling backward, her armor smoking and sparking from collapsed shields. She'd left herself open for too long. Great.

 

Against better judgment, Kolyat rushed to her side. Immediately, his lightweight shields flickered and fell drastically under the rain of energy rounds. They had nearly reached their limit when he was at her side, taking her by the arm with one hand. With the other, he hurled a throw field at the closest row of assailants; at the angle he'd projected the biotic attack, they sailed backward into the next wave of officers behind them.

 

Fusillade reduced, Kolyat hauled the commando into a sprint with him. By the time the C-Sec grunts had recouped their organization, the targeted pair were tucked low and reloading. The dumping crate began trembling as energy rounds bit into it in an ongoing, hailing onslaught. They were effectively pinned.

 

"There had better be a way out of this," Kolyat said. He was waiting for a gap in the noise to return fire, and his agitation mounted when there was none.

 

"Stall."

 

Even while preoccupied, the squads were disorganized enough he could spare some attention to grouse at his newfound accomplice. "Your plan cannot be to hold ground and take out fleet after fleet of cops."

 

" _Dirty_ cops," the commando scoffed. Her shotgun had locked up, its overheated state warping the metal just enough that the chamber wouldn't slide shut. She begun whacking it against the ground.

 

"Until everyone on that payroll keels, and then the actual clean badges flood us. And good luck after we shoot _them_ down-- because to anyone else on the law-abiding side of the fence, _we're_ the outlaws murdering public servants in cold blood. This mess goes that far and we're looking at warrants that span the entire galaxy."

 

"Not yet. Too much heat on us." A pause before the commando chuckled. "Fight fire with fire."

 

"What the hells are you on about?" Kolyat crouched down to reload, grimacing as the officers began launching a continuous cycle of gun hail to pin them. It wasn't until he looked over at her that he realized she was speaking into a private channel.

 

She nudged him to indicate the side-conversation had ended, and she was now answering him.

 

"It _won't_ go that far. We just need to stall long enough for pickup." Her shotgun finally clicked the round into place. "Cover."

 

He surprised himself by half-expecting that last part. She moved first, twirling sideways around their shelter, and immediately the torrential focus of fire fell upon her. Her shields sparked, failing. But her biotic charge told she hadn't expected them to last-- they carried her as far as a few steps, and as they collapsed under the assault, the biotic charge deployed and she sailed the rest of the way.

 

 _Not just a hothead,_ Kolyat reappraised as the first line of C-Sec officers were knocked back flailing.

 

And then he was propping his fire line just above the dumpster and aiming at officers out of her range, while she focused on terrorizing those unlucky enough to be on ground level with her. With the focal point of attack directed at the imminent disaster on two legs, Kolyat caught minimal consideration from their foes. He didn't need a scope at this distance, or an exaggerated barrel. Headshots were expected from a drell's superior eyesight; the outlying snipers and other distanced officers dropped as Kolyat discharged rounds in rapid, focused succession before any of them were even aware he was aiming.

 

'Stall', she'd said…but between the both of them, they were decimating the entire squadron.

 

The cacophony of weapon fire ebbed into strayed shots. The remaining officers were backing into the dilapidated building structure, the asari giving chase into the shadows. Beyond that cover, there were only flashes and yells. She was going too far in--

 

Kolyat was on the move.

 

Shadows and stealth were his metier. He holstered his gun, drawing his knife instead as he slipped into the dimness. His first victim stumbled backwards into him, firing blindly at the raucous of death screams in the near distance. Kolyat dispatched the poor salarian with an easy slit across the belly.

 

Another officer stood in periphery of the action, trying to snipe. This turian seemed to be having trouble locking aim to the darty commander rapidly bludgeoning and shotgunning the other C-Sec cops; her panic-induced tunnel vision was her end as Kolyat severed two vulnerable arteries on turian anatomy before she registered the cuts upon her.

 

With a whimper and her collapse, the area fell eerily silent and dark. No more sounds of struggle. Or flashes of weapon discharge. Or signs of which side ultimately prevailed in the encounter.

 

Kolyat stuck close to the structure supports, blending his shadow with the dim interior.

 

A body bumped against his.

 

"Hey--"

 

He had a blade just biting into the space between a helmet and chest plate, and only stopped short upon realizing it was _her_. He had bitten back a gasp, and then an aggravated headache as he put his knife away. She wobbled slightly on her feet, fresh blood shining off the entire right side of her armor, but there were the soft snickers hedging her breathing that told of triumph. She possibly hadn't even noticed Kolyat had nearly ended her.

 

"Sync up." She sounded breathless, but more along the lines of 'thrilled' as opposed to 'spent'.

 

He barely caught the channel invite on his receiver before she was already speaking again.

 

"Mori, I'm fe--"

 

Kolyat patched in, but it took a second of lag before the output aligned to real time sound.

 

"--feeling stood up about now!"

 

"Please. Book a shrink for your insecurity," a smoother voice quipped back, but there was an underlying tension that told of a preoccupation on the speaker's end. "You know traffic's a bitch tonight."

 

"Yeah, well, so am I."

 

A soft chuckle. "Keep me impressed, Shepard. Coords now."

 

 _Shepard_ , Kolyat noted quickly as the commando responded by raising her omnitool. He filed the information away as a holo map appeared, skewing and resizing until the far ends contained their location on one end, and the current position of 'Mori' on the other.

 

"Two sectors over?!" Kolyat wracked his mind over how they were expected to span the distance unscathed, much less unconfronted. Especially since their contact seemed to be moving _away_ from them.

 

"Definitely more than a hop and a skip," the commando exhaled.

 

"My suggestion then would be to _run_ ," their ride said with finality.

 

Shepard huffed an expletive, poising to dart in the fastest, most efficient, moronically _obvious_ way to their destination. Fighting the wave of annoyance gathering at his tensed jaw, Kolyat batted her armored shoulder to catch her attention.

 

"I'll take point from here," he said. "You'll only lead us into more hostiles."

 

From the pause and head-tilt, he could've sworn she was about to question why exactly that was a problem. But he was on the move at that point, giving her no option except to follow.

 

It was a toss-up on compliance when it came to her type-- Kolyat had worked with headstrong, battle-eager, action-oriented fools before. There were those not even worth words, but this Shepard seemed to have an objective. And a hells-bent drive to reach it. So long as he moved congruously to it, he would have her cooperation. He just didn't have the ammo (or want of, really) for the warpath he knew she'd wreak if he didn't detour them.

 

Into the shadow pathways he led her, wincing at the heavy thudding footfall of her full-suit battle armor following behind him and the reverberations of which that clacked down the alleys around him. He was grateful for the inner cityscape of the Citadel, with its densely overlapped acoustic makeup hopefully swallowing the sound of their travel.

 

Just as things appeared to be running smooth for the first time that night, Kolyat noticed their tracked destination begin to dart away from them, no sign of slowing down at any point.

 

"Shit," Shepard muttered behind him. "They're really on her. Move!"

 

She shoved past him, but even as he kept pace, he was incredulous. "We can't keep up with that accerrelation!"

 

"We don't have to! We just have to get as close as--"

 

Kolyat saw the sniper first. He pushed her bodily into the next alley that opened up, heat of the two-shot fire on his neck. That wasn't the end of it. More rounds flew in too-close trajectory to their line of travel, dropping their shields dangerously low. It must have been an entire sniper _unit_.

 

"They're on top of us," Kolyat hissed, discharging his pistol just long enough to keep the squad from shooting at them.

 

They ducked as the wall next to them flashed briefly, glanced by return fire. An old window shattered next to them.

 

"We're surrounded!" Kolyat continued. "The only way past them is _through_."

 

"Better fucking book it then!" the commando retorted.

 

She began pumping her shotgun skyward. Random it seemed at first, before Kolyat heard a body fall wetly behind them as they passed an awning. At his wit's end in acceptance, Kolyat only barely registered thesector's edge ahead of them, the line of ground and the open skyway of airborn traffic ahead; but it could've been a straight road with how the commando was running headlong towards it. Before Kolyat could communicate any amount of concern to her, his shields flickered, pelted heavily by C-Sec officers pooling fire behind them. Shepard stepped into freefall.

 

Insanity before him, and death behind, Kolyat leapt with her.

 

Cars flew past them, honking and swerving from their air dive. It was only a brief moment in correcting his falling pose that he spied his accomplice not too far away.

 

While he remained somewhat upright, she'd elected to dive headfirst. She had her hand outstretched towards him (an invitation of sorts?) but otherwise her whole body was relaxed; she may as well have been lying down, facing him (the invitation all the more alluring).

 

He attempted to see through her visor to decipher what she looked like beyond the glass, but the lights speckled across the Citadel's nightscape obscured her face with reflection. Her fingers wiggled in his direction then, and it was only with that cue that he realized they were drifting away from each other. He lilted forward and grabbed her hand before they could fall any farther away.

 

She looked up (his down), and Kolyat followed her gaze to a car at a halt in traffic. Melted dents and burn marks on the paint job made it otherwise stand apart from others. The roof opened up, and they collided into the backseat. The car lurched with their weight. Their shields absorbed most the impact, but the tumble was enough to reignite Kolyat's overall agitation with the night's events.

 

"You take this long picking up all your dates?" the commando snarked as she crawled into the passenger side.

 

"You're the one who took forever to get ready." The response came from the driver's seat, where an unarmored asari was settled.

 

Kolyat had only centered most his weight in the backseat, before he was slammed into the cushions by the vehicle's accelerating force. The roof he'd entered through clasped shut above them him.

 

"This is my partner," the commando said, also visibly flustered by the sudden change in velocity.

 

"The name's Morinth," their driver muttered sullenly when addressing him.

 

"Kolyat," he returned in kind, even though they already had his name anyway. He set his gaze on the commando that had dragged him around all night. "And _you_. It's Shepard, if I heard right?"

 

There was a grunt as she wrung her helmet off. Almost immediately she was tugged roughly by the collar to Morinth, who met her with a full-on mouth-to-mouth connection unfamiliar to Kolyat's comprehension for reason of. But that wasn't was drew his gawking; it was the appearance of the alien exposed to him now. It wasn't an asari after all.

 

Its skin, cracked open with lightning-like red scars, was otherwise smooth and of a soft, easily tearable texture. And atop its head was…some sort of shaggy mane? Its appearance and anatomy was unlike anything Kolyat had ever before encountered, but for its distinctness, his mind flashed segments of history books about a primitive species of alien that had been wiped upon discovery of far-space travel tech.

 

Kolyat didn't even notice his jaw dropping until the asari-- Morinth-- glimpsed him with a sideglance and begun to snicker as she broke their mouth connection to refocus on driving. The alien sitting in the passenger seat of the vehicle-- whose species he had so much trouble identifying….

 

It was a _human_.

 

"Yeah," Shepard said with a crooked grin, eyes glowing bright red. "You heard right."


End file.
